Subscribers decry poor telecoms service

Mobile telephone subscribers in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, yesterday decried what they described as poor quality of service, saying it has affected their businesses in terms of passing urgent information either through calls or short message service (SMS)

They said the decline in service delivery has been on the increase in recent times without any improvement from the service providers.

Yakubu Thompson, a businessman, said most times his calls did not get connected and his messages always stayed pending for a long time before they could be delivered, adding that when the call eventually got through, it kept braking, making it difficult to communicate.

“Sometime in the process of sending urgent information, the line will remain disconnected or will say, switched off, even when the persons’ phone is on.

“Last week, I tried to call my staff to go and give our client a document that will fetch us a huge contract as the phone kept showing call disconnected. You could imagine how frustrating the service problem could be and I lost the contract, ‘‘ Thompson said.

Another subscriber, Hajia Nma Muhammad, a civil servant, said for four days there was no network in her house at Prince and Princess’ Estate.

She said it took her to use a friend’s phone to lodge a complaint before the service was restored.

“Now the service comes off and on, what can I say, bad system,’’ Muhammad said.

Mr Garba Ibrahim, a cloth seller at Wuse market, said that he tried calling his wife with two different networks to pick his children from school because he was busy with consumers at the shop.

Ibrahim said for more than an hour the phone kept telling him switch off, he got angry and rushed to the school and picked his children only to get home to find that his wifes’ phone was on.

“You can imagine that, these service providers will not break my home. NCC must do something to ensure that service improved in this country,’’ Ibrahim said.

A journalist also told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that some time he experienced loss of service in his house at Abacha road Mararaba.

“Some of us are tied to the network not because we love it but because most of us receive our salary alert from these networks.”